I have been in a lot of homes, and I am amazed at how many of them are sterile. They have
white walls and nothing on the walls, or if the walls are painted, it has no decoration. It reminds
me of a hospital. Our home is our soft landing place. We come back to it tired, irritable, or just
bummed out after our days out and about. We relax and regroup here. We should invest in our
own mental and physical well being (as well as our families) by making it a place of inspiration.
You can do this in numerous ways for instance:
- Make art, or invest in art. You can read this article, which gave me some thoughts to ponder:
- Buy a candle warmer, and infuse your house with delightful smells. I have been doing this for a
couple of years now, and my family loves it. There is something wonderfully homey about having
the smell of coffee cake or cookies constantly floating the air. It is a small investment (less than
twenty bucks initially to buy a warmer at a retail store, and it costs less than two dollars to buy
scents, which last a couple of months. You can find this at Walmart in the candle area).
- Play soft music. I have been experimenting for twelve weeks now with this idea, and I have found
that some soft music adds a pleasant touch to the home. If music soothed Saul, from the Bible,
then surely it can sooth us when we are irritable too. You can open a free Pandora account, and
give it a try. Some of my favorite artists right now are the following:
Michelle Mclaughlin
Brian Crain
Jennifer Thomas
Helen Jane Long
Ludovico Einaudi
Lindsey Stirling
When I find myself getting irritated, I just turn the music on. It helps me tremendously.
- Keep it clean. This sounds obvious, but it isn’t for a lot of people. People don’t want to go back to their home
when it isn’t clean because it isn’t relaxing. A lot of life is about forming habits. It is hard to develop the habit,
but then you don’t think about it anymore. You just have to learn discipline.
Make it a family affair, and team the things you don’t want to do with something that is more pleasant. My kids and
I do a big clean up on Saturday. That means we vacuum, wash the floors, dust, and do anything extra to spruce up
for the week. We don’t like to do it, but we put on music, we try to have fun (obviously some days are better than others),
and we get down to business. We know good things await us when we are done. We have lunch, have a treat, and we
get to play or paint the afternoon away in a nice tidy house.
Pick one thing you want to change, and work on it. When you have that down pat, add another thing. Sometimes
accomplishing things is all about taking baby steps in the direction you want to go!
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